© Inteview by Elizabeth Roberts
ELIZABETH ROBERTS You come from an artistic background –your mother is an artist and your training was in fine art painting– you are, naturally, knowledgeable on the subject, so it is no greatsurprise that you began this project, Portraits of Artists, but can yousay what is the driving force behind it?
NICHOLAS SINCLAIR I realised early on that I have an affinitywith artists and that I’m able to visit an artist’s studio and comeaway with a photograph that has some value, not in monetaryterms but as a historical record. Once I understood this I knewthat I should continue the work and this is what drives me.
ER How much does your training in fine art affect your approachto portrait photography?
NS It influences every aspect of what I do as a portraitphotographer. Many of the decisions I make when I’m workingare similar to those that a painter will make – transferring a threedimensional setting on to a two dimensional surface, thinkingabout line, tone and colour, using the edges of the composition,dividing up the picture plane, using light and shadow, lettingchance play a role in the creative process, the way movementcan be implied. These are all things I absorbed unconsciouslyfrom looking at paintings and from learning how to paint, sowhen I began my photographic career these lessons werealready embedded.
ER How do you choose your subjects? Does your own opinionor reaction to their work influence your choice?slika jason brooks
NS It does. I find it difficult to stay objective when thinking aboutartists because I have a real passion for the visual arts, and I believethat if we are open to works of art they can have an effect on ourlives. This has certainly been the case in my own life. There arepeople whose work I admire very much and others whose workdoesn’t connect with me, so I will naturally gravitate towards artistsI admire but it is up to those artists whether or not they want to bephotographed. Sometimes they agree and sometimes they don’t, sofinding my subjects is an unpredictable and meandering process.
ER What do you hope to achieve from a portrait of an artist?
NS An image with integrity that engages the viewer on differentlevels and where every element of the image is working, but thatisn’t an easy thing to achieve. There have been times when I feel asif I’ve come close, with Caro and Auerbach for example, and thereare other times when I feel as if I’ve failed, but if I leave an artist’sstudio with a well conceived portrait then I’m happy.
ER How important is it to you to include the artist’s work in theportrait? Is this always possible and, if not, how do you go aboutchoosing a background?
NS It isn’t essential but it can make a picture more informative andmore visually arresting. It’s sometimes possible in the photographto set up a dialogue between the artist and their work, or with thematerials they use, and this can add something valuable – but thisis dependent on what I find in the studio at the time of my visit sothere’s a lot of improvisation in what I do. My first priority is tomake a strong portrait, and so when I arrive at a studio I will belooking for ways to achieve this. I look for backgrounds that workphotographically, light against dark for example. I look for lines andshapes that lead the viewer’s eye across the picture plane. My aim isto create a visual structure that supports the psychological dimensionof the picture, and the two have to work together. If the backgroundis distracting or confusing then the strength of the picture isundermined, so finding a background that contributes to the overallcomposition is essential to the success of these photographs.
ER How important do you think an artist’s personality is to their work?Do you try to bring this connection to the fore in your portraits?
NS I think the two are very closely connected. The work is anextension of the artist’s thought process and their intuition, and agood photograph has the potential to suggest this connection. Myrole is to recognise when the personality is coming through and torecord it and then, in the editing process, to select an image thatconfirms it. I’m fascinated by the gaze, by that connectionbetween the subject and the viewer and by what is transmittedin that moment. It can be a very powerful thing when you get itright in a photograph.
ER Do you think anything of yourself is present in the portraits?
NS I’m sure there is. If you see a collection of my photographstogether you see a thread that runs right through the work.Something comes through that connects the portraits and I’mconscious of this.
ER You began this project in 1990 when you photographed JohnPiper, you published a book on the work in 2000 and you arecontinuing it today – how do you achieve a consistency throughout?Your other work is highly experimental – so how do you resist thetemptation to experiment and change in this project?
NS I’ve always worked in series, as opposed to working with singleimages, and when I begin a series I decide on a camera format anda way of working, and I then stay with that combination for theentire series. The artists’ project is the longest I’ve worked on andI want the series to appear seamless so that when a second book ispublished there’s a sense of cohesion in the work. Changing to digitalwould make life a lot easier and a lot cheaper for me but it wouldinterrupt the continuity, so I am still working with a Hasselblad andfilm, and with a particular mood – you could describe it as a kindof seriousness, a desire to portray artists as serious people who arededicated to what they do regardless of the outcome.
ER Why did you choose to photograph artists (whose work is oftencolourful) in black & white?
NS There’s a long tradition of working with artists in black &white and I want to contribute to that tradition. Some of the greatphotographers of the last 100 years have photographed artists andthe results are fascinating. Think of Irving Penn’s portrait ofJohn Marin, Cartier-Bresson’s portraits of Matisse and Giacometti,Arnold Newman’s portrait of Mondrian, Hans Namuth’s portraitsof Jackson Pollock, John Deakin’s portraits of Francis Bacon,Francois Meyer’s portrait of Richard Serra. They remain in thememory because they are such powerful images and they are all inblack & white. I also shoot in colour when it feels right and whenthe colours themselves demand it, but I love the subtlety and thesense of austerity you get with a silver gelatin print and so farI haven’t found anything to compare with it.
